Review: 7 Brew's Back To Brew Menu Offers A Variety Of Flavors, With Most Getting Passing Grades

Back to school is just around the corner, and 7 Brew Coffee is celebrating by serving up some nostalgia-fueled sips. The drive-thru coffee chain has recently exploded in popularity, adding more than 500 new locations since 2023, including one that recently opened near me, where I was surprised to see nearly 20 cars lined up to find a caffeine fix at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday. Thankfully, the operation is an efficient one, even for food writers who order half the menu, or close to it.

I snagged all five of the newcomers on the Back to Brew menu and brought them home to taste test. The lineup of August specials is diverse, featuring two coffee drinks, the Banana Bread Cold Brew and the Sweet and Salty Macchiato, a caffeinated soda in the Cherry Limeade 7 Brew Energy, and two non-caffeinated options in the Tiki Tango 7 Fizz Soda and the Bubble Gum Lemonade. In theory, there should be a drink for just about everyone on this monthly menu, but the real question is which one is right for you? Read on to find out which of these drinks deserves a seat at the front of the class and which is headed for detention.

Some recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

I visited my local 7 Brew and ordered all five of the new Back to Brew August specials. After bringing the drinks home, I snapped a few pictures and began my tasting, with the fruity drinks first, followed by the two coffees. My evaluations were based primarily on flavor and texture, with an emphasis on how well the drink lived up to its name and description. The 7 Brew employees were not aware of this review when preparing the drinks.

I love tropical-flavored just about anything, so I had this one pegged as the early favorite to top my list, but alas, the Tiki Tango 7 Fizz Soda just doesn't do enough. Billed as "a tropical adventure in every sip with bright passion fruit and pineapple flavors mixed into a refreshing fizz," this drink simply feels underwhelming.

Yes, the unique flavor of the surprisingly protein-packed passion fruit is present, and the pineapple is there too, but more to provide sweetness and a secondary, balancing flavor. The issue is that neither flavor packs enough punch for this to be an exciting drink. Even the color is muted and somewhat unappealing. Had 7 Brew angled this beverage more in the direction of a juice, I think it would work better. This is by no means a bad drink, but it's not exciting, and that's a real issue.

This is a drink that knows exactly what it's meant to be. The Cherry Limeade 7 Brew Energy drink is a refreshing and sweet mix of cherry and tangy limeade flavors. It's pretty highly carbonated, which gives it a lovely texture and keeps it feeling light with every sip. This isn't a drink that you're going to rave to anyone about, but it has the potential to be a regular in any drink-lover's rotation.

Usually, I would include key information on the main ingredients and the nutritional values for the sugar, calories, and caffeine content of a drink like this, but unfortunately, 7 Brew didn't share that information. In fact, the nutritional values for all of 7 Brew's monthly specials are kept under lock and key. I'll explain more in the final section of this review, but not knowing how much caffeine a self-proclaimed energy drink contains is far from ideal. Most people know their caffeine limits, and playing a guessing game with a beverage like this is hardly how I'd choose to begin my day.

Whoever named this drink was either trying too hard or not hard enough. I enjoy bubble gum flavor when it's in its intended form, as gum, or if I've forgotten my toothpaste on vacation and have to resort to using my toddler's. That's about the only two places bubble gum flavor needs to live for me, so seeing the name attached to my favorite summer beverage, lemonade, did not fill me with excitement.

Thankfully, this drink tastes almost nothing like bubble gum. Meanwhile, 7 Brew lists it as "a throwback-inspired sip bursting with strawberry, banana, and vanilla flavors for a sweet taste of nostalgia." Not a mention of gum anywhere in the actual description, which I'm happy to report is spot-on. This is a very tasty, if not very sweet, strawberry-banana lemonade. The vanilla flavor is a bit harder to pin down, but I found it mostly in the aftertaste where it mutes any residual acidity from the lemonade. This is a good drink with a bad name that I would happily order again.

There are levels to coffee drinkers. At the very base of the coffee tree are the folks who like a mug of pitch-black java, usually served just short of boiling. Further up you get the folks who enjoy a little splash of cream or perhaps some sugar, and then at the very top of the tree, as far from the coffee roots as possible, are the people who order coffee drinks that are really only coffee in name. I fall somewhere on the higher end of the tree because I like sweet things, but I do still want to know coffee was part of my beverage, which the Sweet and Salty Macchiato manages, if only barely.

The description for this drink is apt given that coffee is the second-to-last word: sweet meets savory with caramel drizzle, salted caramel, and white chocolate flavors blended into a smooth coffee favorite. There's no denying the sweetness, thanks to heavy notes of caramel and white chocolate in a super-creamy base, though the saltiness is a bit harder to find. The coffee is there, too, but more as a tag-along than anything. Think of it as the supplier of the aftertaste and just enough color to convince people you're not drinking a melted vanilla milkshake.

The theme of this menu is nostalgia, and of all the flavors presented, banana bread might be the most nostalgia-inducing. Nothing made a school morning better than coming down the stairs, expecting a bowl of oatmeal, but instead discovering that mom had baked a loaf of banana bread after you'd gone to bed. The only thing that could top that excitement was the presence of chocolate chips in that banana bread, and 7 Brew managed to capture that flavor and feeling in a cold brew.

The Banana Bread Cold Brew — aptly named unlike the Bubble Gum Lemonade — features banana, hazelnut, cold foam, and a dark chocolate drizzle in an iced cold brew coffee base. The banana and hazelnut are the two most prominent flavors, and while the combination is unique, it works fantastically well. The first couple of sips are an adjustment process as your taste buds swing wildly between the two flavors, but once things settle in, the unmistakable flavor of banana bread emerges. Add in the dark chocolate drizzle, and you get an extra touch of sweetness paired with a bitterness that accents the coffee while keeping the banana flavor in check. This drink checks all the boxes and is more than worthy of a spot in the carpool minivan.

With five different options, it's hard to claim that 7 Brew's August specials lack in diversity. From caffeine-free versions in the Bubble Gum Lemonade and Tiki Tango 7 Fizz Soda to an energy drink and two coffees to kick-start your day, there's a little something for everyone.

If I'm going somewhere to order a drink, I like to snag a fun coffee, and 7 Brew's two options are unique enough, even if both lean into sweetness. With many chains already rolling out their fall-themed offerings, I appreciate that 7 Brew has stuck to brighter flavors for a little longer while the weather is still hot.

The Back to Brew specials are only here for the month of August, so if something sounds tasty, you'd better try it soon. All of 7 Brew's medium drinks start at $3.90, but prices across all sizes will vary by location.

As I mentioned above, none of the nutritional information for 7 Brew's specials is available to the public. The FDA does not require restaurants to disclose nutritional information for specials available for less than a total of 60 days per calendar year or for fewer than 90 consecutive days in order to test consumer acceptance. While 7 Brew does have a nutrition guide available online, it only lists regular menu items. If you're looking for a sugar-free beverage, three of the Back to Brew specials — Banana Bread Cold Brew, Bubble Gum Lemonade, and Sweet & Salty Macchiato — can be made without sugar.